Websleuths

AWWWW, I knew my FFJ family would help out their WS family in the time of need.

Now kids, we have purchased the new vBulletin upgrade for this forum too. I don't have certain passwords that we need before we upgrade but when we do upgrade you will love it.

I have cut and pasted here the saga of trying to get WS back up. FFJ was luuuuuuukkkkyyy let me tell you. So, sit back and enjoy my day from hell yesterday.

From Websleuths:

Before I get into the story I would like to thank the hard working mods of both WS and FFJ. They are the real workers here. Not me. I can’t thank them enough for all they do.

To the best of my memory, and believe me my memory is never called “best†here is what happened:

Both Forums for Justice and Websleuths went down. I mean no error message or anything. Just the same page we all get when we try and get on the computer and forget to log on to the Internet.

My heart sank. I had no clue as to what the problem was.

My father had recently, and very unexpectedly, passed away. 8 days ago was his funeral. He passed away March 3rd. We had to wait for his brother to be well enough to travel before we had the funeral. Now it’s just my brother and me. My mother had passed away in 1993.

For reasons I won’t go into, my husband chose to go out of the country 4 days after my father died.

My 10 year old son was extremely close to my dad. He needed me day and night. I didn’t even turn on my computer. I knew the forums were down but because of my family situation the forums had to wait.

I honestly can’t remember when I did what but here is how it went down.

Things finally slowed down to the point I could take care of this problem.

I pay a lot for the server; therefore I become a bit demanding when I need their help. Let me tell you, it works.

I got on EV1 Servers live chat. Got a guy named John W. He went in and did some patch thingy to the software and lo and behold, Forums for Justice went up.

No Websleuths.

So, I got back on the live chat with the server people and showed them exactly what John W had done ( he was gone by now) and not a one of them could figure out what he did or what to do about WS.

Then, because of my personal situation, I had to back away from the computer and take care of my son, help my brother, and deal with all the things one must deal with when a parent dies.

Now, comes the weird part.

I finally had a few hours to devote to getting WS back up.

Do you ever feel the forces of the Universe are against you? Do you ever feel like you are battling evil? I felt both those things plus the fact that I was, by now, losing my mind.

I have a friend at vBulletin. vBulletin is the software we use for WS and FFJ. I am not supposed to have his home number but he gave it to me years ago during a live customer service chat. I was melting down. It was before I owned WS. I think he thought I was going to kill someone or myself. He gave me his home phone number and, after many hours of working with him, the vBulletin software problem on Forums for Justice was solved. This was in 2003 I think.

We also became friends.

I sent him an email begging him to drop everything and help me. Even through the server people fixed Forums for Justice; they did it with a patch to the software. The vBulletin software.

He called and thus began one of the strangest journeys in my life.

He discovered that I was running an extremely old version of the software. He said the first thing I had to do was purchase the new software and purchase the professional upgrade. For both forums.

He held on the phone while I got out my credit card and purchased this stuff.

My purchase was declined. I realized I had put in the wrong zip code. So I started over.

I forgot to add that I am not suppose to use this credit card. It goes to an account that really isn’t mine. I had the money in cash so I thought I would put back in the account and not be found out. I was desperate.

Well, it seems the credit card people, since there were two attempts to purchase something out of the ordinary, deemed my card “suspicious†and put a stop to my whole card. Guess I am busted now for using the card.

No worries. I had the money in cash. I also have one of those Visa cards you get at one of those kind of scary check cashing places. All I needed to do was to go to the scary check cashing place, give them the money to put on my Visa cash card and problem solved right? I could use this Visa to purchase the software we needed since now my other Visa that really isn’t mine has been stopped by the fraud department.

Here is the kicker:

The cash I had was all in silver dollars. Those big round ones. The bag I had them in weighed over 50 pounds .

It was all the money I had.

My father use to give kids 20 silver dollars as presents. My brother and I divided the silver dollars up just the other day and I had about 400 of them. Just enough to take care of all the software problems.

I take them to the bank. They refuse to give me dollar bills for them. I have to send them to a special place that counts them out and they should have the cash for me, “in about a week.â€

I called and asked. The scary check cashing place wouldn’t take them either.

I went home and separated all the silver dollars into 20 dollars stacks and put each 20 dollar stack in clear plastic baggie.

Now, I had that bug eyed look of someone people shouldn’t mess with. I think my canine teeth were growing longer too at this point.

I walked into the bank. I went to the teller and asked her if she wanted to be responsible for letting about one million people world wide down. She gulped and said, “no.†I said, “Then please give me cash for these dollars. They are all counted out. If the amount is off you can take it out of my account. (the account I really can’t use but she didn’t know that). She did. My eyes went back to normal and my teeth shrunk.

I live far away from Salt Lake City so it was a long drive. I got to scary check cashing place and put the money on my Visa no problem.

I drove back home. My son was home from school. I needed to spend time with him. When he was in bed, I went back on line to vBulletin and purchased my software with my Visa from the scary check cashing place after exchanging those big round silver dollars my father collected. Don’t worry. None of them were worth more than face value. He has the really valuable ones in a safety deposit box.

Now, I open my e-mailbox. Is there such a thing as a Tsunami of the email world? LOL. I didn’t know where to start. I had opened it earlier but never let it finish downloading. I had even answered a few. Now, I let the download finish.

I just stared at the email. Subjects like, “HELP†“FOR GODS SAKE†and “ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME†leapt out at me. I thought it best I now get a hold of my friend at vBulletin to start fixing WS.

Before I shut down my email, (I had looked at it for about an hour) one more email came through that caught my eye. It was from vBulletin. I opened it and it said;

“We value the security of our customers. That is why we have deemed your purchase of our vBulletin software with the Visa from the scary check cashing place using 400 silver dollars to be of a possible fraudulent nature. “We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you but your purchase is denied.â€

Ok, that’s not exactly what it said but close. In other words, my Visa from the scary check cashing place was flagged as a possible “fraudulent Visa.â€

At this point I asked Satan if he wanted my soul.

I had one last option. vBulletin takes PayPal. My Visa from the scary check cashing place is registered with my PayPal account. PayPal seems to think it’s ok..anyway, I finally purchased the software and all the stuff that went with it through PayPal. It worked.

I got my friend on the phone and for the next 2 and ¾ hours we were on the phone together getting the software installed. I should say he did all the work and we talked about the difference between men and women.

So my friends, now you know the saga.

My vBulletin guy would not let me pay him. So please wish good Karma come his way. He deserves it.

I won’t be around for a while. I have many things I need to do to take care of my son and my father’s estate. Just know that I love you all and keep WS buzzing ok?

Love Tricia

 

I know he will. I thank God for him every day.